Love & Motorbikes
by WhosInTheAttic
Summary: Rose and the Doctor are living together. He's tinkering in the garage and she brings him tea, at which point he quotes her some Pablo Neruda because reasons.


Grease/Ice/Diamond

As Rose entered the garage with a sweating glass of iced tea in either hand, the Doctor looked up from the tool and hunk of metal in his hands. "Hello, Rose," he smiled, setting the items down amid the other bits and bobs strewn around him. He had streaks of grease on his cheeks that looked suspiciously like they'd been left by his own fingers. She grinned with her tongue between her teeth.

"Hello Doctor. Brought you some tea," she said, crossing the flat cement and holding it out to him. Now that she was standing next to him, she could see a fine layer of sweat on his brow—across his whole face, really—that gave away just how human he was now.

"Thanks," he tipped the glass to his lips and took several deep swallows.

"So how's the rebuild goin'?" she asked, eyeing the engine parts strewn all over the floor and workbench. She cast a glance in the direction of the presently-engineless motorbike, then back to him, watching his Adam's apple bob up and down as his muscles worked the tea down his throat. She felt a twinge low in her belly as she watched a bead of sweat slide languidly from beneath his left sideburn and travel down his neck and be swallowed up by the collar of his cotton t-shirt. She bit her lip to stifle a sigh.

The Doctor lowered the glass and made a contented sound before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "That is really good." She smiled down at him, and he looked around at the motorbike parts and up to her again, "Oh, the work is going fine, but to be honest…" he reached to ruffle the hair at the back of his head, but stopped when he saw the state of his hand, instead lowering it back to his side, "I'm having trouble. I could easily reassemble the whole thing, but instead I find myself checking and re-checking for imperfections in the machining work, making sure all the couplings are sound and that there isn't any grit in the components to jam it up later, just when I think everything's going smoothly; I've gone over every piece sixteen times."

"So are you satisfied then?"

"Yep," he said, popping the 'p', "Yes, I think I am." He smiled broadly, sticking his fingers into a tin of white cream off to his right. He rubbed it over his hands and the grease began to slough off like crumbs from an eraser. Rose sipped her iced tea, then stooped for a moment to sit the glass on the floor beside his, and watched as he used a white rag to clean his hands up the rest of the way. There was still grease trapped under his fingernails, but now he wasn't in danger of spreading black stains over everything he touched. Which was good, because he was taking Rose's hand in his own.

"Rose, I love you." He said.

"I love you too, Doctor," her face flushed, not from embarrassment, but from want. He'd said it for the first time on Bad Wolf Bay, but he was never frivolous with those words, preferring to show his feelings for her as he always had done—in his actions every day. He saved the words themselves for those quiet moments when they were alone, entangled in each other, vulnerable and out of breath, sheets clinging to their sweat-slicked bodies. He'd lie on top of her, and stroke her face as if he were reassuring himself that she was actually there; he would look into her eyes as if he were looking into _her_, and he would say, with a husky quality to his voice, "_Rose Tyler, I love you_." For this reason, those words issued from his lips always had a way of laying her soul bare, and right now—in this garage, him struggling from a cross-legged position to his knees—was no exception.

She was shaken from her reverie as he continued speaking. "I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way than this: where 'I' does not exist, nor 'you', so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep," he said. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and retrieved a small dark blue velvet box before taking a breath, "And I should very much like it, Rose Tyler," he said opening the box, "if you would agree to be my wife." He looked up hopefully at his pink and yellow human, the woman who had made him better.

The silence seemed to hang between them for an eternity, and the Doctor was so terrified he could feel his heart pounding against his ribs, hear his blood moving in his neck and past his ears, he could even hear the ice faintly hissing as it melted away in the glass of tea beside him. Had he done something wrong? He looked to Rose's face for the answer, and watched as her stunned expression—motionless except the movement of her eyes from his face to the contents of the box and back again—cracked into a wide smile. Tears streaked down her face. "Yes," she managed to choke out. "_Yes_."

The Doctor took the diamond ring from its box, then gently took her left hand in his, slipping it onto her finger. He got to his feet, and took both her hands in his and clutched them to his chest. "I've only got one life, Rose Tyler, and I'm going to spend it with you."

A life with the Doctor was exactly what she wanted. She gave his hands a squeeze before slipping free of his grip to wrap her arms around his shoulders. Following her lead, he encircled her in his arms as well, drawing her flush to his body. She tipped her face toward his, and he covered her lips with his own, opening almost immediately to her searching tongue and caressing it with his own. She pulled his bottom lip between her teeth and gave it a light nibble, making him whimper into her mouth. The sound caused warmth to pool low in her abdomen again, and her fingers snaked into his hair and curled around the strands, causing him to moan against her lips.

The Doctor broke the kiss, both of them breathing heavily, the air from each of them trembling as it fell upon the face of the other. "We should," the Doctor clutched at her, "we should go inside," he whispered, the husky quality back in his voice once more.

"Yeah. Let's go inside." She bit her lip as they reluctantly broke apart, then took his hand and led the way to their bedroom.


End file.
